The 12 funniest words in the English language, according to science

Despite being grown adults with jobs, responsibilities and Nutribullets, we all have certain words that we can’t say without sniggering. And more often than not, these words will be found at the lewder, more juvenile end of the English language spectrum. Remember how hilarious you found it when someone said ‘willy’ at primary school? Still find it kind of funny now? Exactly.

In a new scientific paper published in the journal Behaviour Research, psychologists set out to identify the funniest words in the English language – and their findings make us feel much better about giggling about toilet humour.

Researchers Tomas Engelthaler and Thomas Hill of the University of Warwick recruited over 800 volunteers for the study. Participants had an average age of 35, and 58% were female.

They asked them to rate words on a scale from one (not funny at all) to five (funny), and to follow their gut instinct rather than taking time to think about their answers.

Gender differences also emerged in the words that men and women found the most amusing. Giggle, beast, sod, juju and humbug were rated as funnier by women than men, while men were more tickled by words such as bondage, orgy, birthmark, weld and raccoon (?).

Researchers were also able to highlight the least funny words in the English language using the same experiment. These, unsurprisingly, tended to be associated with morbid events and negative emotions, with rape, torture and torment deemed the most humourless English words.

Women at a SlutWalk in Los Angeles in 2015. "Booty" was voted the funniest word in the English language.

What does all this tell us? On a basic level, it seems that the more of a novelty a word is, the more likely we are to find it funny. Christian Jarrett at BPS Research Digest observes that the words that attracted the highest funniness ratings tended to be less frequently used, and took people longer to recognise as words.

The study authors say that they hope their research will help others studying the psychology of humour. “If single words have reliable humour ratings, they provide humour in miniature, allowing us to investigate humour in relation to the many existing lexical norms,” they write.

Now if you’ll excuse us - we’re off to shake our booty to bebop with an egghead.

Images: iStock; Rex Features

Topics

Share this article

Author

Moya Crockett

Moya is Women’s Editor at stylist.co.uk, where she is currently overseeing the Visible Women campaign. As well as writing about inspiring women and feminism, she also covers subjects including careers, podcasts and politics. Carrying a tiny bottle of hot sauce on her person at all times is one of the many traits she shares with both Beyoncé and Hillary Clinton.